Sri Lanka has a number of ancient cities which were once major cultural, religious and commercial centres. We visited one of these, Anuradhapura, two days ago. One of the country’s eight world heritage site it was formerly the centre of Theravada Buddhism and continues to remain an important Buddhist pilgrimage centre.

There are eight principal religious places which are visited by pilgrims here. Of these we managed to see the following:
Jaya Sri Maha Bodi. This is a sacred bodhi tree grown from a branch of the original at Sarnath in India which I visited several years ago and under which the Buddha obtained enlightenment. Planted in 288 BC, it is the oldest tree with a known planting date and is a most holy relic. The tree is now kept up by guilded supports.

Ruwanweli Maha Seya. This is a stupa of hemispheric shape containing relics of the Buddha. It’s really large with a height of 338 feet and a circumference of 951 feet.

I particularly liked the rows of elephants gracing the sides.

While we were there workmen were busy whitewashing the stupa and climbing up a tall, steep ladder without any safety harness!

A Puja procession also took place during our visit.

Lovamahapaya. Otherwise known as the brazen palace only the supporting pillars remain of this building which dates back to 1500 BC.

Sandra pointed that the array of pillars reminded her of this sculpture at Italy’s Villa Celle, Magdalena’s Abakanowicz’s ‘Katarsis’ (1985):

Abhayagiri Dagaba. This is another huge stupa built of red bricks and dating back to the second century BC.

Like the Angkor Wat, which we visited in 2015, it would need a good month to fully explore Anuradhapura but at least we got there and visited its main features which fully demonstrate the incredible energy encapsulated in a belief which is more a philosophy than a religion.